Monday, March 15, 2010

I love to read! More than watching television or movies, I like to sprawl out and read a book. Hardback, paperback, it doesn’t matter. I even have the programs on my computer so I can read ebooks - though this is not as enjoyable (reading a book at the computer can be tiring, I gotta say) - and if you have an old ebook reader you don’t use, why, just send it to me!

I don’t often read reviews of books. Most seem to be written by professional critics and tend to be overly critical and demanding. But every-so-often I’ll find a review that does a good job, giving enough information to make me want to buy and read the book reviewed.

Steven Brandt has a blogging site called “Reviews From the Deep”. On it he reviews the books he has listened to and lets you know what he thinks. I say ‘listens to’ because Steven has been going blind for some time now. So he buys audiobooks - mostly on CDs, and gives a review of the tale, as well as the production - namely the narrator.

The reviews are from the viewpoint of a reader, not a critic. So even if you disagree with his opinions you'll enjoy reading them, anyway. :)

When I could afford it, and had a long commute, I was a member of audible.com. Rather than novels I would purchase biographies and histories to listen to - on an mp3 player - on my way to work. At that time I was spending a good 45 minutes to an hour to get to work. Instead of fiddling with the radio, to try and find music that wouldn’t annoy me, I could listen to a history. And I enjoyed it.

Now audible had abridged and unabridged recordings of the books. Abridged books, of course, are edited down a bit, sort of like a Reader’s Digest version. I never bought these, preferring the full version. So now, when I read one of Steven’s reviews I don’t know if he’s using an abridged or unabridged version of the book he’s reviewing. I suppose I should ask.

Anyway, if you like to read, and want to see a review of some of the books he’s read, I recommend heading over to Reviews From the Deep and checking out what he’s got there.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

I've been missing - on the blogging scene - for a while. No excuses, just haven't felt like opining. Each day I roam the 'Net checking out my favorite blogs and sites, keeping up on the nefarious activities of the Left, and the heartening activities of the Good Guys. There's plenty of reason to worry about where our nation is heading, indeed our world. But there's also plenty of reason to be hopeful for our future as many are wakening to the dangers of creeping Statism and Surrender.

It's not as if there hasn't been evidence galore revealing the dead-end of the Socialist way. The charitable impulses of many, who support socialism as a way of making sure that all are equal, result in those under Socialism being relegated to a kind of poverty: poverty of living conditions, poverty of future, poverty of spirit. None of this is new.

The history of the 20th Century is filled to overflowing with the evidence of Socialism's inhuman aims. But still Socialism - in may guises - is touted as the way to a kind of Utopia, by Ivory Tower academics, entrenched potitical Elites, and mush-headed youths who have yet to step out into the real world. If you needed any more evidence that Socialism is a dead-end, or that its promises are lies, you don't need to look at the insanity of Venezuela and its chubby thug Dictator Hugo Chavez, nor at the Castro brothers' hell-on-earth in Cuba. You don't need to try to explain Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. No, simply look at what has befallen Greece.

"If socialism worked, Greece would have been the richest country in Europe. No other member state of the European Union has such an extensive system of government welfare, pension plans, government aid for needy families, healthcare, government-guaranteed student loans, government labor exchanges, trade unions legislation, etc."

He goes on to comment,

"It all ends when you run out of someone else's money. And when your soul is dead, you become a slave. And now the Greek government is a slave to its creditors, and the Greek people are becoming slaves of their government. Protests or not, from now on the Greeks will have to live in shackles. High taxes. Pay freezes. No more cash transactions over 1,500 Euro—the government needs to control every transaction. Zero protection for privacy or bank accounts. No more protectionism, no more generosity. Step by step a nation with a bad soul is turning into a slave nation. As was to be expected, if the Greeks had read their Bibles."

Read Bojidar Marinov's "Killing the Soul of a Nation", and contemplate what is coming to America if we continue to sway to the Siren song of Socialism.

One of the sites I go through each day is American Thinker. Good articles, enjoyable, thought-provoking blog posts. And one of those writers is known as Robin of Berkeley. I was so interested in what she was saying that I clicked on her name and found her archive. I started at the first post and kept going. Now I check each day for a new post. Robin is a psychologist, working on the Left coast, who, until recently, was a Lefty. But she's now recovering from that little bit of insanity.

These are not easy words for anyone to utter, much less a leftist from Berkeley, or a recovering leftist, that is. Even though I've been in recovery for 14 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days, leftists are always right in your face, in an I-hate-you-if-you-disagree sort of way. Hence, this letter of amends to all the people I've lectured, scolded, ranted and raved at, and otherwise annoyed during my 30 plus years of "progressive" politics."

Eye-opening, isn't it? That's the voice of a rational woman who has seen the light and renounced her Leftism. And recently she posted "The Weird Failure of the Left" in which she says,

"I'm starting to dread seeing the postal worker. That's when my leftist mate's magazines start showing up. Some days, it feels like Saul Alinsky himself has risen from the dead and invaded my mailbox.

Last month, Jon's Harper's Magazine wailed about the White Supremacy movement. But his March/April Mother Jones takes the paranoid cake.

The cover features the most despised life form on the planet: the white male. He's wearing a hoody and looking menacingly into the camera. The headline thunders: "Age of Treason. This Soldier Is Ready To Take Up Arms Against the Obama Administration. He's Not Alone."

The hit piece is all about the enemy within. But the author's not talking about those domestic terrorists who planned to bomb Jewish centers in New York. Not the infiltration of our military (our military!) by jihadist Muslims. Certainly not the far-left Obama-holic who killed her brother and blew the brains out of her University of Alabama colleagues.

It's something much more hair-raising: the God-fearing, conservative-voting, white male."

Every one of her articles has been a good read, and this one maintains the quality. May I suggest you read both of these articles and then check out the archives of Robin of Berkeley? Worth your time, and good to know that there are a lot of smart, level-headed people still out there.

Remember, if you continue to do something that doesn't work, and believe that eventually it will work, that's sort of an indication of insanity. Socialism does not work, has not worked, and will never work. Changing the faces running a Socialist system will make no difference. Socialism ignores human nature, thus it cannot work because it is based on the idea that humans will always work for the 'greater good'. They will not. Ordering them to do so will not work. History proves that Socialism is not a successful working system of government, no matter how 'smart' the leaders,